


I Forgot to Remember to Forget

by kinfic2



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-28 12:36:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5090993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinfic2/pseuds/kinfic2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night after Justin left for New York</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Forgot to Remember to Forget

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in my LJ in 2008

_“_ _I’m not looking forward to the night I’ll spend_ _thinking of you when you’re not here.”_ _©Hitchcock/Russell_  
  
Brian did the one thing he had been dreading all night. He went home to an empty loft. Despite herculean efforts to numb his senses at Babylon, reality made its presence impossible to ignore, like a certain blond, blue-eyed seventeen year old five years ago.  
  
In a ringing testament to the emptiness that shrouded him, his footsteps echoed hollowly across the polished floor. Anxious to rid himself of reminders of his new life _,_ he flung his club clothes on the bed, spewing invectives at one person, Brian Kinney.

  
_“The day he went away, I made myself a promise that I'd soon forget we ever met._  
_I thought I’d never miss him, but I found out somehow I think about him almost all the time._  
                                                       _You see, I forgot to remember to forget him. I can't seem to get him off my mind._ ” _© _Lennon/McCartney__

His private cloak of sorrow permeated the walls and floors because his body couldn’t hold it all. He zeroed in on the rare unopened bottle of Jim Beam and couldn't get to the bar fast enough. He needed relief, any relief, from the crushing despair. He took a long swig, wincing as the amber liquid scorched his throat, and then took another deep swallow. As the heat burned its way down, he brushed away a trickle of liquor from his chin and plodded to the sofa.  
  
With the bottle precariously balanced between his knees, he pondered the vacuum of his life. Unbidden memories, some he'd rather forget and some he'd prefer to remember, made him question the roads he didn’t take, the choices he didn’t make. Not surprising, most of them involved Justin Taylor.  
  
Desperate for a distraction, he glanced around the vast space, at the symbols of his professional success. His bloodshot eyes roamed aimlessly over the minimalist but sleek decor: top-of-the-line stainless steel appliances with enough controls to rival Norad, glass and chrome designer furniture, sumptuous leather and plush silk fabrics. He had worked hard for his luxuries. And then he lost them and worked twice as hard to get them back.  
  
It was in the middle of a bleary squint that he spotted it—the ivory parchment envelope perched against the computer with a recognizable scrawl. _**BRIAN.**   _Christ! Really? Guzzling more liquid courage to even acknowledge its presence, he forced his legs to move toward the desk.

Shaky fingers traced the ink, the familiarity of its warmth transcending into the warmth of its familiarity. He could do nothing else. Because there _was_ nothing else. It was too late. He was an express train that had bypassed the stations of Moment and Opportunity. Anything he could have said or done to stop the train wreck of his life, he didn’t, and now he was paying the price—a one way ticket to nowhere.  
  
Too afraid to know and too desperate not to, blood hammered in his temples like a pulsing metronome as he sank back down on the sofa and read. _  
_

____

 

“That’s not the way it turned out, Sunshine,” he whispered. He wanted to touch him so badly his skin burned.

                         

His head drooped against his chest. When he cracked open his eyes, sixty seconds had turned into sixty minutes. He stared at the letter and croaked out the words so foreign to him, he could only utter them in the face of life-changing disaster. “I love you, too.”  
  
Body and soul aching, he stumbled to the bedroom and collapsed on the bed. Refuged within the secure folds of the duvet on Justin's side—when the fuck did it become his side?—he breathed in the scent of his shampoo from his pillow like a healing balm. When sleep mercifully claimed him, the letter and envelope were still clutched in his hand, and the last thought that flitted across his mind was to remind the cleaning lady not to wash the pillow cover.

**Nothing is more memorable than a smell. Smells detonate softly in our memory, like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of years. Hit a tripwire of smell and memories explode all at once.** _©D. Ackerman_


End file.
